Catalyst: “I chose a form that would seem familiar to you. It’s kind of like that movie ‘Contact.’ Have
you seen it? It isn’t very good, but I love anything with Matthew McConnaughey.”

Shepard: “What?”

Catalyst: “My all-time fave is ‘How to Lose a Guy in 10
Days.’ It’s just delightful. I’d tell
you to add it to your Netflix queue, but I kind of doubt the mail is getting
delivered, since Earth got eaten by my giant robot space Cthulhus. Plus, you’re
going to die in about three minutes.”

Shepard: “Wait. What?”

Catalyst: “I’m just fuckin’ with you, bro.”

Shepard: “Oh. Good. I was about to freak out. So, how do I stop the reapers?”

Catalyst: “I control the reapers. They are my solution.”

Shepard: “Solution? To what?”

Catalyst: “Basically, people are smart enough to be
dangerous, but you’re still too stupid to live.
You always invent killer robots that will exterminate all organic life. The only way to stop that from happening is
to invent killer robots that only exterminate most organic life. It’s really obvious, once you think about it.”

Shepard: “That’s not true.
I made peace with the killer robots. I united everybody behind a common purpose. It's super-inspiring, dude."

Catalyst: “Are you serious?
Have you not been paying attention? All you’ve managed to prove is that
the disparate civilizations of the galaxy slightly prefer tolerating each other’s
presence to dying in a fire. If the
reapers were out of the picture, how long do you think the galaxy would last? At best, you managed to bring about a temporary cease-fire. And, in the process, you gave free will to an army of nine-foot tall killer androids. You also cured the genophage, which was the only thing preventing the galaxy from being overrun by giant nuclear rage rhinos. And you decided that a species of bugs the size of trucks should continue to exist. Twice. I don't see this ending well.”

Shepard: “The truck-bugs said they’d be nice.”

Catalyst: “God, you’re stupid.”

Shepard: “You’re taking away our future. That’s all we’ve got.”

You thought there'd be a happy ending? Dumbass.

Catalyst: “I am the most powerful computer ever
created. I’ve done the math. If I don’t harvest advanced civilizations,
then they’ll inevitably destroy themselves and all other organic life.”

Shepard: “I don’t believe that.”

Catalyst: “It’s a fact, dipshit. You don’t get to agree or disagree with a
fact. It just exists.”

Shepard: “But we built the Crucible.”

Catalyst: “Yeah, you did.
And if there’s one irrevocable law of the universe, it’s that
world-destroying fleets of squid-bots must yield to vaguely-defined space-macguffins. So I guess now we need to find a new
solution.”

Shepard: “Hellz yeah,
we do. In yo’ face.”

Catalyst: “Okay, you
want some choices? Here are some choices.
First, if you want to destroy the reapers, you can do that. You can destroy all synthetic creatures,
including the geth. It will also blow up
the mass relays and the Citadel.”

Shepard: “How about we just blow up the reapers, and we keep
the mass relays and the Citadel?”

Catalyst: “How about you go fuck yourself?”

Shepard: “But we’ll have peace? The reapers will be gone
forever?”

Catalyst: “Yeah. But
they only stop you from destroying yourselves.
How long do you think it will be before there’s another Rachni swarm or
another Krogan invasion or somebody invents more killer-robots?”

Shepard: “You have to give us a chance.”

Catalyst: “You’re an idiot.”

Shepard: “What’s the second choice?”

Catalyst: “You can take control of the Reapers.”

Shepard: “So the Illusive Man was right>”

Catalyst: “Yep. He’s
made a lot of sense all along. If you didn’t
skip all the dialog, you might have noticed.”

Shepard: “I kind of wish I hadn’t shot him in the face.”

Catalyst: “You make a lot of really questionable decisions.”

Shepard: “So how do I control the reapers?”

Catalyst: “Grab onto those electrode things over there.”

Shepard: “The ones with all the blue lightning jumping off
of them?”

"Don't say I didn't warn you."

Catalyst: “Yep.
Those.”

Shepard: “Looks like that will hurt.”

Catalyst: “Oh,
yeah. It will melt your goddamn face
right off. I never said this was going
to be easy. Also, the mass relays will
all blow up.”

Shepard: “Yeah, I’ve
got a question about that. The full
military strength of every advanced race in the galaxy has been deployed to
Earth.”

Catalyst: “So?”

Shepard: “So, if the mass relays blow up, how will they get
home? They don’t have FTL drives, and
they

rely on the mass relays for interstellar travel.”

Catalyst: “What do I look like? A spaceship scientist? Who gives a damn about FTL drives? You just
have to give into the emotional significance of what’s going on right now. This is major climactic shit that’s happening
here. Don’t be such a nerd.”

Shepard: “What’s the third option?”

Catalyst: “You jump into that big green beam of light, and
die. For some reason, that will create a
new DNA that fuses all organic and synthetic life into an organic-synthetic
combination.”

Shepard: “How does that fix anything?”

Catalyst: “I don’t know.
I’m pretty much just making shit up.
My plan was to kill all humans. I
still think we should go with that one.”